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Practicing Liars	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 63257 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Six�A Change
in Strategy

�� But I don�t
understand.� Zacharias Smith had his upper lip stuck out. Harry managed not to
roll his eyes, but it took a lot of effort. Smith was always pouting like that,
and Harry had no idea how Hermione managed to stay patient with him. At least
Harry didn�t have to teach him. �Why can�t we use the Shield Charm to deflect
the Severing Curse? It�s just like the Blasting Curse, and��

�� No, it isn�t,�
Hermione said. Harry watched Ginny�s horse Patronus gallop around the room, and
traded smiles with her. The smile was partially for Hermione, though no one
else needed to know that. Probably the reason his friend could work so well
with Smith was the fact that she just talked over him when he tried to argue. �They
have completely different incantations, and just because you heard one person
mutter something that sounded like one of them once doesn�t mean they�re
identical.�

�� Harry
glanced over his shoulder. Smith cowered in front of Hermione and then started practicing
the Shield Charm again. Harry moved on to check the way that Neville was
drilling three of the younger Ravenclaws in the Patronus Charm.

�� Neville
grinned at him. He�d grown this year�Harry tried not to feel resentful that
Neville was taller than he was, now�and there was sweat on his forehead and
muscles along his arms. His wand moved with efficient quickness. He was one of
the few other students that Harry would have trusted in battle with him. �Some
of them want to know why they�re practicing the Patronus Charm,� he advised Harry
in a whisper. �They complain that they want to learn something new.�

�� Harry
hesitated. He hadn�t told anyone about the strange Dementors he�d thought he�d
seen in the dungeons because�well, the more he thought about it, the more he
couldn�t believe they had been Dementors. But at the same time, he didn�t want
Dumbledore�s Army to get out of practice in the Patronus Charm.

�� It�s a
good indication of how much magic someone can focus,� he said, which was true,
but not the main reason. It sounded good, though, and Neville nodded seriously.
�If they can do a corporal Patronus, then it�s a sign they�re strong,� Harry
added.

�� Neville shook
his head. �You know no one other than you can do that consistently, Harry.�

�� Harry felt
a rush of warmth through his chest. He would remember that the next time he had
to fight, he told himself, and make sure to take Neville along. �Well, some of
them might if they practice enough,� he said, and moved on to the next small
group, this one under Ron�s leadership, learning the Disarming Charm.

�� As Harry
stepped up next to Ron, one of the fifth-year Hufflepuffs went sprawling to the
ground with the force of the charm that had hit him. Ron laughed, and the boy
scrambled back to his feet with his face all red.

�� Harry gave
his best friend an evil look, which Ron didn�t notice because he�d already
turned to shout encouragement to someone else. Harry shook his head and went up
to the boy. �What�s your name?� he whispered.

�� The boy
hunched in on himself the way that some of them did when Harry came close.
Harry had tried to figure out why and wasn�t able to come up with a good
answer. Was he that scary? They were going to have problems if they ever had to
face Voldemort, then.

�Um,� the boy finally said, when he
realized that Harry wasn�t going to go away. �Edgar Buttons.�

�All right, Buttons,� Harry said,
using the brisk tone that he appreciated when a professor like McGonagall used
it with him�especially when Harry had made a mistake in Transfiguration and
didn�t want everyone in the class thinking about it anymore than they already
were. �You�re going to practice Expelliarmus
with me.� He fell back a step and drew his wand. Buttons stared at him open-mouthed.
He had wide blue eyes that watered when he blinked them.

�� I don�t�but
you�re really good,� Buttons said, as though Harry�s offer had been made to
humiliate him. He kept hunching his shoulders and shooting Harry distrustful
glances that suggested he believed exactly that. �It won�t be much of a challenge
for you.�

�� Believe
me, I�ve got plenty of challenges,� Harry said wryly, thinking about the way
that Snape had behaved in Defense for the last fortnight. He kept turning
towards Harry as if he would ask him to demonstrate something, and Harry would
tense in response, but in the end Snape would always turn away and choose
someone else. That person would usually get something wrong. Harry was holding
his tongue with an effort, but he wondered how much longer he could stand to
watch idiots act out their idiocy in front of the class. �I want to teach
people, too. Just relax, yeah?�

�� Buttons
gave a stiff nod. �My mum says you�re not supposed to say �yeah,�� he
volunteered.

�� Well, yes,
then,� Harry said, and tried not to picture Buttons�s mother as looking
something like Aunt Petunia. �Lift your wand�like that�and hold it as loosely
as you can without dropping it, all right? I think part of your problem was
that you were freezing up and your wand wouldn�t move every way you wanted it
to.�

�� Buttons
stared at him a moment, then arranged himself with a few shuffles and flappings
of his robes. His face was brilliant red. Harry realized that most of the
people in the Room of Requirement were watching them with interest.

�� He
shrugged. Not much he could do about that. People would watch him with interest
every day of his life, he was starting to think. The best he could do was make
sure it was for the right reasons.

�� Now, on a
count of three,� Harry said. �One, two, three, Expelliarmus!�

�� The
familiar burst of magic up his arm was answered by a pitiful flip from Buttons,
which resulted in his wand flying across the room before Harry�s spell caught
it and pulled it back to his hand. Buttons was red for another reason now, and
he came stomping across the room to get his wand when Harry held it out to him.

�� I�m not
any good, and I�m not ever going to be any good,� he muttered.

�� Well, no,
you�re not, not if you keep saying things like that,� Harry answered frankly. Buttons
stared at him. Harry grinned back. �Do you always give up after one try?�

�� Slowly,
Buttons grinned in answer.

*

�� Why�d you
spend so much time helping that twit anyway, Harry?�

�� Harry
rolled his eyes as he and Ron stepped out of the Room of Requirement. �Buttons
isn�t a twit, Ron. Did you notice that Lavender was having the same problems
with the Disarming Charm? But you were a lot more patient with her than you
were with Buttons.� He glanced sideways at Ron, who had turned red enough to
drown his freckles. �Why�s that?�

�� Shut up,�
Ron muttered.

�� Does it
have anything to do with the way Hermione ran out of the room like her arse was
on fire?� Harry asked innocently.

�� Shut up, I said.� Ron was walking away from
him now with a determined stride, and Harry laughed and hurried to catch up
with him.

�� He was
never sure what made him turn around and look back down the corridor. Maybe old
habits left over from last year, when they had to be careful that Umbridge didn�t
catch them training with the D.A.

�� But anyway,
that was why he saw Draco Malfoy dart out of a shadowed corner and hurry
towards a door that had just appeared. Harry knew the door was the one to the
Room of Requirement�it was in the right place�but it was much smaller than the
one that led to their training room, made of dark wood with crisscrossed
patterns on it. Harry watched with an open mouth as Malfoy pulled the door shut
behind him and the wall sealed itself over it.

�� Ron!�
Harry whispered when he could get his breath back. Except, because he had to
whisper it, Ron didn�t hear him, and Harry had to run up the corridor and pull
him back so that he could show him the spot where the door had disappeared, and
by then, it didn�t seem as exciting or important as it had when he actually
watched the door disappear.

�� Malfoy?�
Ron put a hand over his mouth to conceal the yawn. Harry grimaced. He would
have held the meetings of Dumbledore�s Army earlier, but Hermione insisted that
they had to finish all their homework first before they could go to them, and
so it was almost midnight. �But what would he be doing up here? He�s never
tried to join us or interrupt us, and now he has no one to report us to, since
Dumbledore knows about it.�

�� I don�t
know,� Harry said doubtfully. The initial excitement had gone away. He gnawed
his lip. Malfoy could easily get them in trouble with Snape if he wanted to,
but he hadn�t. And yet he obviously knew they were in there, because he had
waited until everyone was gone before he ran in. That argued he�d been standing
in the shadows and watching.

�� Is he spying on us for Voldemort? But
that still didn�t make sense, because the only thing Malfoy could have told
Voldemort for sure was who was in the D.A. The Room would prevent him from
seeing inside.

�� It�s
weird, mate,� Ron agreed with a shake of his head. �But he probably just goes
in there to wank or something. Come on. The prefects are prowling around
looking for us.� He tugged Harry�s shoulder.

�� Harry went
along, though he kept looking over his shoulder at the door of the Room. And his
dreams that night were of chasing Malfoy through a confused, twisting corridor
between piles of what looked like books and wooden doors.

*

�� At least the idiots are gone. Draco
touched his wand to the Vanishing Cabinet and spoke the spell that he�d got
from the book Snape lent him, concentrating on the pulses of Dark energy he
could feel working their way up his arm and into his wand core.

�� Adigo integritatem!� It was an
involuntary healing spell, used in the past to force the victims of torture to
become whole and healthy so that they could be tortured again. If Draco had
made the right calculations based on what the book said, then it should repair the damage to the cabinet
and make it a perfect copy of the one he had seen in Borgin and Burke�s.

�� The spell
flowed over the cabinet in a dazzle of black and blue lightning. Draco stepped
back, catching his breath. It was more beautiful than he had expected�and it had
taken more out of him, too, so that he was panting as he stood there. He hoped
that he wouldn�t have to cast it more than once.

�� Then the
lightning coiled into a tight ball above the Vanishing Cabinet. Draco frowned.
The book hadn�t described the spell acting like this.

�� The ball of
lightning shot towards him, humming so hard that Draco could feel the hair
stand up on the back of his neck.

�� Draco
yelped and ducked. The ball soared over his head, luckily, and he heard it
ignite something in the background. A puff,
and leather and paper, from the smell, began to burn. Draco hastily hopped back
to his feet and put the source of the fire, one of the numerous books gathered
in the Room of Hidden Things, out.

�� Then he
turned back to the Vanishing Cabinet, shaking his head. He was exhausted. The
effort of keeping up his marks in Potions and Defense�one a class that shouldn�t
have been challenging but was because Professor Slughorn didn�t like him, the
other challenging because Professor Snape was teaching it�was beginning to tell
on him.

�� Along with
trying to save his parents when no one else in the entire world cared about
them.

�� Draco
closed his eyes and took a composed, careful breath. He had to stop thinking
like that. He had to stop remembering the owl his mother had sent him,
reassuring him that everything was going fine at the Manor and that they could
even hope to have his father out of prison sooner rather than later.

�� He had to
stop thinking about the way the letters were shaky and ill-formed, how they
straggled across the page.

�� His mother
had always written neatly. In fact, she had insisted on teaching Draco how to
handle a quill herself, because she had said that no one at Hogwarts or
anywhere else would teach him how to do it properly.

�� Draco
shivered and opened his eyes. Then he set his feet and faced the Vanishing
Cabinet again.

�� He would fix this. He would do something that would make his parents proud of him and
even make the Dark Lord proud of him.

�� No one else
was ever going to help him, but what did that matter? Malfoys weren�t supposed
to need help from anyone anyway.

*

�� The more he
watched Malfoy, the more Harry became certain he was doing something important
and wrong.

�� It was hard
to think how he hadn�t noticed it before. He reckoned he�d just got out of the
habit of looking at Malfoy, because Malfoy hadn�t taunted him much this year
except when he came out into the dungeons that night�but even that was strange,
because Malfoy hadn�t shown that kind of restraint the other years.

�� Keep alert, Harry scolded himself as he
watched Malfoy�s head droop over his Defense book. They were waiting for Snape
to come in. Most of the class had already learned how important it was to get
there early. Snape had a nasty habit of taking points off if you weren�t there
when he came through the door, no
matter what the clock said. When students complained, he gave a nasty smile and
asked them how they were going to deal with Dark wizards, if they couldn�t deal
with school hours.

�� Harry
gritted his teeth. Thinking about Snape just made him impatient and angry�and worried
about what Snape might have seen that night two weeks ago. Harry didn�t think
he had to be that concerned, because the glamour faded slowly most of the time,
until the last few minutes of its duration when it vanished all at once. Malfoy
might have seen something before Harry could restore his normal face, but not
Snape.

�� Think about Malfoy instead.

�� Yeah, Malfoy
was almost asleep�not at all normal or natural. He managed to be alert in class
even when he hated the subject, like Care of Magical Creatures. And Harry
thought he was paler than usual, and his cheekbones were more pointy.

�� Good thing I have the spell on. I would look
even more like him without it.

�� Malfoy also
had dark circles under his eyes, and his hands trembled where they were folded
over each other. Harry cocked his head. Was he afraid? Or hungry? Sometimes his
hands trembled that way at the Dursleys�.

�� Harry
decided that he would have to keep an eye on Malfoy. He was the kind of person
that some of the notes in that wonderful book he�d found to help him with
Potions told him to watch out for: an enemy who looked harmless. Harry had
already done something stupid by forgetting about him so far. He wouldn�t make
that mistake again.

�� Snape swept
through the door then. The talking immediately stopped. But Malfoy didn�t wake
up, and in fact, Parkinson, who Harry thought must have cheated on the Defense
exam, had to nudge him in the ribs. Malfoy lifted his head, gasping.

�� Not normal at all.

�� Harry
frowned one more time and turned back to face the front, prepared for another
day of tension when Snape looked at him�tension that would never turn into
anything, because Snape seemed to have decided that the better part of valor
was not calling on Harry.

�� He called
on Parkinson instead, and she stood in front of the class and fumbled the simplest shield charm other than Protego, the Daylight Shield that would
protect you by blinding your opponent. Snape made sneering comments, something
he didn�t usually do to his Slytherins. Parkinson got all flustered and tried
to cast it again, but she must have messed something up in the Latin, because
she ended up blinding herself and
staggering in circles with a hand over her eyes.

�� Snape
sneered. He said nothing, but he stood there, coldly studying Parkinson, and
Harry knew that he would just let her go on stumbling until the spell wore off,
which could be twenty minutes. No one else would dare do or say anything because
they were afraid of Snape.

�� Harry
ground his teeth. He shouldn�t, he probably shouldn�t, but he was sick and
tired of wasting time and watching Snape allow people to suffer from their
mistakes instead of teaching them how to correct those mistakes. And other
people didn�t learn anything, either, because they didn�t know the proper
incantation or what the wrong people had done wrong.

�� Why don�t
you pick on someone who has the skill to challenge you, sir?� he asked, and
didn�t care how disrespectful he sounded as he stood up and drew his wand. What
could Snape do to him? Put him in detention or take points? That was nothing
compared to Voldemort, and maybe not even compared to whatever secret Malfoy
was hiding.

�� Snape
turned to face him at once, coming to rest in a deadly stillness that made his
robes flutter away from him and then land like bats� wings around him. Harry
sneered at him. He�d seen more complicated and scary things from the Death
Eaters in the Department of Mysteries.

�� And you
believe that you do, Mr. Potter?� Snape�s voice was cold and heavy. Harry knew,
from the sound of it, that he hated the fact that Harry had stood up and
challenged him. He was trying to intimidate him into sitting back down.

�� Yes, I do,�
Harry said coolly. �I think you haven�t called on me because you were afraid of
looking like an idiot.�

�� Someone in
the audience let out a shocked titter. Snape didn�t even look around for the
source of it, which surprised Harry. He just drew his wand instead, his eyes
never leaving Harry�s face, and cast the Finite
to make the spell blinding Parkinson vanish. She scurried back to her seat
and stared at them both.

�� Very well,�
Snape whispered, his words sharper than ever. Harry smiled. It didn�t matter
that Snape had wanted him to do this two weeks ago; he must have given up the
notion of getting Harry to cooperate, because he would never have waited so
long otherwise. And the personal insults couldn�t make this pleasant for him. �Show
me what you can�do, Potter.�

�� Harry
walked out into the middle of the floor and faced Snape. �The Daylight Shield
goes like this,� he said, using his wand to draw a quick cross in the air in
front of him. �And the incantation is Me
adviglio luce!�

�� He barely had
time to shout out the last words before Snape was sending a swarm of brilliant
red ants at him. Harry took a neat step back and watched the yellow Daylight
Shield flare into being between them, its light making Snape throw a hand in
front of his eyes. Harry knew he wasn�t incapacitated, but it would take a
little while for him to look again. Harry used the time to send the Cold Arrow
spells at the ants that would freeze and kill them.

�� Snape dropped
his hand sooner than Harry would have expected and began to circle as he spat
out a complex series of spells. Harry consciously recognized only half of them�the
Bone-Breaking Curse, the Blasting Curse, the Wand Transfiguration Charm, the
Coward�s Heart Jinx, the Summoning of Elder Wounds, the Curse of Tithonus�but it
didn�t matter. His own hands were flying in response, lifting shields, casting
the countercharm, or creating a dazzling nuisance that Snape had to stop and
deal with before he could continue to cast his own spells.

�� Faster, and
faster, and faster, and the air between them was a blur of power and light.

�� Harry�s
breath was coming in rapid, shallow pants. He didn�t care. Sweat was running
into his eyes from his forehead, and some blood, because the edge of the Summoning
of Elder Wounds had nipped through his defenses and torn open a shallow cut
near his scar that he had received years ago. He didn�t care. Snape was
chanting spells now that Harry barely remembered studying, spells tucked in the
very back of the Defense book he�d spent all summer reading.

�� He didn�t
care.

�� This was
what he was born to do. It was like
flying, like Quidditch, except that he�d never had to study to ride a broom; it
had been natural from the first time he did it. This was the result of study,
and the result of the promise he�d made that this year would be different in
honor of Sirius, and he was doing it.

�� How could
he ever have wanted to hide this?

�� Finally,
Snape lowered his wand and passed it in front of his body in the motion that
traditionally signaled the end of a formal duel which had reached a draw. Harry
regarded him suspiciously, keeping his own wand up. He wouldn�t put it past
Snape to use the traditions for his own ends.

�� Snape gave
him the smallest of smiles, and inclined his head at him. Harry stared at him
in wonder. Just for that one moment�that moment Harry would have dismissed as a
delusion like the white Dementors, except that he had learned to see spells
that lasted for a shorter time�his smile wasn�t a smirk, wasn�t condescending.
It showed genuine approval, respect and admiration for a talented opponent.

�� Then Snape
turned around, stared at the rest of the class with a withering expression, and
said, �Why have none of you done a tenth as
well?�

�� Harry went
back to his seat with his head bursting. He had new ideas for the next meeting
of Dumbledore�s Army�and new ideas for his own self-training�and new ideas for
ways that he could keep track of Malfoy without Malfoy knowing that Harry was
keeping track of him.

�� And a new
thought, that Snape wasn�t all that terrible
and maybe he could help if Harry really thought
about it. And took precautions to make sure that Snape didn�t influence him
too much and that he always had his glamour up around the man.

�� Harry tried
to send the thought away. But it was like a bee that had got trapped in his
room that summer, only this bee was trapped between the bones of his skull, and
it buzzed, and it wouldn�t go.

*

�� Severus had
an urge he hadn�t felt in years, to show his victorious smile to all concerned.
It was a miracle that he managed to maintain a stern eye and disapproving face
as he watched Potter walk back to his seat.

�� He had
decided on his strategy two weeks ago. Ignore Potter, let the boy believe that
he would be able to hide his talents for all Severus cared, and meanwhile pick
on the rest of the class while Potter watched and grew more and more agitated
with their lack of competence.

�� Eventually,
Potter would have to interfere. He
could deny his power all he liked�he probably thought he had to, with a
Gryffindor�s martyr complex�but it was Severus�s experience that no one who was
truly gifted could stand to see morons tackle his area of expertise for long.
Potter would leap into the ring because he could not help himself, any more
than he would have been able to watch someone abuse a fine broom without speaking
up.

�� Besides,
the experience of spying on Potter as he trained Dumbledore�s Army had
convinced Severus, if reluctantly, that the boy had the soul of a teacher. Teachers
could not simply stand about with a smile while their students fumbled through
problems they knew the answer to.

�� And now it
had happened, and Severus had sent the second part of his plan into motion when
he dueled the boy the way he would have dueled another Death Eater. Force
Potter to exercise his talent; show him how good it felt.

�� And the
third part, the part he had picked up from watching the boy meet with Albus:
show him a bit of approval in the very moment when he would be flying high and
be the most vulnerable to someone sharing his triumph.

�� The boy�s
eyes had sparked, and his grin had turned effulgent with exhilaration.

�� Severus had
no doubt that Potter would cooperate with him in their training sessions now.
Slowly, of course. Reluctantly, at first.

�� But it was
a beginning.

*

�� Roe: Thank
you!

�� paigeey07:
The answer to that won�t be revealed for a while.

�� k lave
demo: Have to wait for an answer to the question of the Dementors, sorry!

�� Draco would
probably be thinking more about a possible attraction to Harry if he weren�t so
stressed about other things.

�� SP777: I
can�t answer that yet.

�� jennifer:
Here you are!

�� Anon: Snape
is starting to change here, but mostly because he can still get his way and
influence Harry without Harry knowing it. He�s not going to become a big
open-hearted softy any time soon.

�� Draco is
mostly desperate because he feels so alone. He thinks he would know better how
to handle the situation if he wasn�t.

�� Sneakyfox:
This chapter hopefully shows you the answer to that question.

�� akinohanun:
Thanks!

�� callistianstar:
Thank you! I imagine the Patronus was puzzled that it had not been summoned to
fight Dementors or carry a message.
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Practicing Liars